MADE.By You. For You. {@CHIxMPLS}

Tag Archives: Boys

Die-hard drill instructors, jailbreaking football coaches, and corrupt backwoods sheriffs. It was all just another day of work for former Marine Corp. drill instructor-turned-actor R. Lee Ermey, who died earlier this week. Ermey was an incredibly dynamic character-actor with an instantly recognizable face and rambunctious personality. The Kansas native joined the Marine Corp. in lieu of jail time after he’d been arrested twice by the age of 17. He began his career serving as a drill instructor in San Diego during the early 1960s before eventually being sent on a 14-month deployment in Vietnam. He was injured during his tour in 1969 and was sent to work as a staff sergeant in Okinawa before being medically discharged in 1972, ending his hopes of a long military career. After moving to the Philippines to attend college, Ermey married and began taking odd jobs in television commercials before landing his first film role as Sgt. Loyce in a movie called The Boys in Company C, which followed five young Marine Corp. recruits from their bootcamp training to their deployment in Vietnam. Continue reading →

A new documentary titled De Palma is seeing release this week from directors Jake Paltrow (The Good Night, Boardwalk Empire) and Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg). The film is a chronicle of the life and work of acclaimed director Brian De Palma, whose major body of work has spanned from the 1970s to the present with films like Carrie (1976), a Stephen King novel, Scarface (1983) with Al Pacino (The Godfather, Scent of a Woman) and Michelle Pfeiffer (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Batman Returns), and The Untouchables (1987) with Kevin Costner (Waterworld, Dances with Wolves), Robert De Niro (Goodfellas, Casino), and Sean Connery (Diamonds are Forever, The Hunt for Red October). Despite all of the acclaim and success earned by these films, De Palma is one of the many artists who has never been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Untouchables saw Sean Connery win his first Oscar in 1988, Continue reading →

Actor and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney is best known for the acclaimed The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy and studied theater at Chicago’s DePaul University.

Writer/director Barry Jenkins (Medicine For Melancholy, Futurestates) will begin filming his own adaptation of the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney in Miami this fall. Simply titled Moonlight, the film follows a young man, Chiron, in 1980s Miami during the War on Drugs at three important moments in his life as he deals with a rough home-life and his developing sexuality. Additional casting for the film is currently underway and Indie film production company A24, which is also behind this year’s Ex Machina and Amy, will be teaming up with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Productions to finance the project. Adele Romanski (Bad Milo, War Story) will also serve as the film’s producer. This will be the second major production for director Jenkins, whose Medicine For Melancholy received much critical praise in 2008 when it was first seen at the SXSW Film Festival in 2008. Actor and playwright Terell Alvin McCraney was born in Miami, Florida in 1980 and attended the Theater School at Chicago’s DePaul University, graduating with a BFA in acting and receiving the Sarah Siddons Award in 2003. We’ll keep an eye out for additional news.

Rumors have been flying around Hollywood for the last year or so regarding a potential third installment of Michael Bay’s Bad Boys film series with Will Smith (Men In Black, Independence Day) and Martin Lawrence (Life, Big Momma’s House), and now Sony Pictures has confirmed that a sequel is definitely happening. But it’s not only one sequel that fans can look forward to. According to Sony, Bad Boys 3 AND 4 now have official release dates for February 2017 and July 2019, in a list that also detailed release dates for a Jumanji reboot, a remake of the classic Magnificent Seven by director Antione Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), and an adaptation of The Dark Tower from director Nikolaj Arcel (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair). Original Bad Boys director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) is not currently attached to these new films, at least not in a directorial function. It has been rumored that Smokin’ Aces and The Grey director Joe Carnahan will be taking over the reigns for these new installments, as Bay is currently working on production of several new films, including Transformers 5, The Purge 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, and a Friday the 13th reboot. Stay tuned for more news.

Documentarian Marah Strauch (Sick Mick and the Boys) just showed her latest film Sunshine Superman at the Montclair Film Festival earlier this month, and is now anticipating a larger (yet limited) release this May 22nd. The film, which was first shown at the New York Film Festival back in October 2014, explores the life of skydiver and BASE-jumper pioneer Carl Boenish and his unquenchable passion for “foot-launched human flight.” The project took home two awards for Best Documentary and Best New Director at the Portland International Film Festival earlier this year and will still be shown at the Seattle International Film Festival this May 24th. Check your local theaters for showtimes available in your area. You can watch the trailer here on MADE. Enjoy!

Writer/director Chris Rock (right) with Rosario Dawson (left) in Top Five (2014).

Last year’s hit-comedy, Top Five, proved to be a major accomplishment for writer/director/actor Chris Rock, so much so that he is now being pressured by producer Scott Rudin to get a follow up in the theaters as soon as possible. Rock revealed to The Guardian in a recent interview that he and Rudin are having meetings on the subject on a weekly basis, and that he is planning on using a majority of the Top Five cast for the new project. Some names that have already been mentioned include Leslie Jones (The League, Workaholics), Tracy Morgan (30 Rock, Cop-Out), and Jerry Seinfeld (Seinfeld, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee), but nothing as far as casting goes is set in stone, and Top Five had a huge repertoire of stars to write a sequel for, such as Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys 2, Cadillac Records), Rosario Dawson (Clerks 2, Sin City), Kevin Hart (Think Like A Man, Get Hard), Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, Sister-Act), and Adam Sandler (Grown-Ups, Pixels). We’ll keep an eye out for further updates.

Director Denny Tedesco‘s The Wrecking Crew was originally released at SXSW in March 2008, followed by the Nashville Film and Seattle International Film Festival. The film then saw various releases at festivals around the world following the rest of 2008 and into 2009, but never actually saw a mass release for reasons unknown, although the unofficial assumption is that, given the content of the project, the rights to most of the songs were tied-up until now. Centering on The Wrecking Crew, a group of musicians who played for such acts as The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Sonny and Cher, the film contains archival footage and recordings of the musicians, plus interviews with the members including Lou Adler and Herb Alpert. Check your local theater listings for showtimes near you.

Last week we posted about the upcoming drama American Sniper from director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Jersey Boys), based on the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, who served four tours of duty in Afghanistan. The movie is based on Kyle’s autobiographical book, and stars Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, Silver Linings Playbook) and Sienna Miller (Casanova, Stardust) as Chris and Taya Kyle. Check out the trailer here on MADE. The movie is scheduled for release on January 16th.

The new comedy from comedic writer/director Chris Rock will be opening in theaters on December 12th and critics are hailing the film as “Chris Rock’s ‘Annie Hall’,” (Jordan Hoffman, Vanity Fair Magazine). With an all-star cast that includes Adam Sandler (Happy Gilmore, Grown-Ups), Rosario Dawson (Men In Black 3, Sin City), Kevin Hart (This Is The End, Think Like A Man), Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys 2, Cadillac Records), Whoopi Goldberg (Sister Act, Ghost), Tracy Morgan (30 Rock, Cop Out), and Cedric The Entertainer (The Steve Harvey Show, Barbershop), the film follows a comedian trying to break into a serious acting career by taking advantage of his reality-TV-star fiancee’s idea to broadcast their wedding on live television. Watch the trailer here on MADE, then go check it out on December 12th.

Actor/comedian Martin Lawrence appeared as a guest on Conan O’Brien’s late night series this week and when asked by the enigmatic host whether or not we can expect Bad Boys 3 anytime soon, Lawrence replied, “I believe so, yes!” Word about a possible third installment in the series from Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer was announced by Variety last September, and now it seems that producer Bruckheimer is really working on getting the project going. According to Lawrence, Bruckheimer is currently waiting for a finished script, which is apparently not very far away. The actor was not able to say for sure if costar Will Smith would be returning for the third movie or not, and we don’t have any word from Michael Bay that he is returning either, so everything is pretty much still to-be-determined, but it looks as though there is light at the end of the tunnel! We’ll keep you posted.